The Hindu Rate Of Wrath

Is there such a thing as ‘Hindu terrorism’, as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents—a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I’ll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents’ ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).

In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions.

You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like simi, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not.

However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the ‘vengeance’ bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.

I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed.

So sometimes, enough is enough.At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.

There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?

43 responses to “The Hindu Rate Of Wrath”

While I do agree with your point about hindus being more accepting than other religions, I have v to disagree with some of your points there.
I think you have forgotten to include the 1984 sikh riots which the sikhs didnt really provoke.
Also the hindus have less of a reason to start things considering their will is often law in the country. They are not persecuted for being the majority (like we see in most western cultures). A myriad of religions in india are under the Hindu law (except for the muslims).

I would also like to point out that tearing down someone’s place of worship is a terrorist attack. it creates a terror among people that they are not welcome in the community. It also takes away their right to practice their religion. In a country that claims to be secular, thats a shame.Since the majority of the population is Hindu, the attacks on temples do not take place. And if they do, they are dealt with death there and then. in the barbari masjid case the muslims just retaliated in a mob later.

Being a BJP supporter for many years myself, I still think bjp promotes this kind of agressive view point among hindus. Not to say all of BJP condones violence , but there are some elements which foster this hostile outlook. A good example of this is Modi.

The indian democratic system is based on ” for the people, by the people and of the people” and the people should not just be Hindus. other communities should not have to live terrorized

this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard

When one writes about any issue he should write based on the merit of the issue. Where the author comes from, what his background is and so on are beside the point. But here we find that the author consumes a lot of space for details about himself. This act is not very respectable. This also gives one a forewarning that the author is uncertain of the varacity of his thoughts and is therefore preparing a background for the latitude he wishes to have.

I also wonder why he tells us Hindus how good we are! What is his purpose? I am always alarmed by somebody praising me on my face! The same thing happened in case of this araticle.

Then he goes on to the issue of Babri masjid which a good citizen wants not to be reminded of because it is so emotive. He even talks about attacks on churches saying, “Without killing anybody” secretly praising the act and forgetting the cases where our Indian Christian brothers were killed. He does not forget even visiting as back in history as year 1399 to blame Christians! What is his intention?
What does the writer want to achieve?

When a neighbor says to one brother how he is better than the other brother or how he gets less than he deserves, one immediately knows that the neighbor is aiming to cause a rift between the brothers.

This author does it very blatantly.
Further, if he claims to have, “… realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos” then why is he now saying, “this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.”

I can understand why Noor is writing like this but at the same time fail to understand why Narayan writes like this?? Anyways, Mr. Narayan it is high time you realise that it is not your neighbour but your brother’s wake-up call!!! I agree not all muslims are terrorists but can you answer why all terrorists are muslims??? I still salute many muslims like Abdul Hamid, Mohd. Rafi, Bismillah Khan, APJ Kalam. My dear friend, please visit certain places in Mumbai and subarbs and I bet you will be scared of visiting them again. I am saying this as I have experienced it myself. Anyway, try to hoist Indian falg in Hubli and ask our those brother to sing Vande Mataram… Bye for now dear.

Mr Noor
——-
You say the hindus have less of a reason to start things considering their will is often law in the country. If hindu will happens to be law India would have been a superpower by now. The problem is that in the name of secularism hindus are being persecuted. You also say that a myriad of religions in india are under the Hindu law (except for the muslims). Are you not aware that most of these so called religions brached out of Hinduismn itself? There is cultural or spiritual difference othe than few customs among these religions. Also is it not funny that the separate law for muslims provide benefits under personal law derived from Shariat but punishments? Can you point out one muslim leader who talks about the plight of Kashmiri Pandits? The problem with Indian muslims is that they find it difficult keep country above religion and face difficulty in adjusting within the framework of the country.

Mr Narayan
———-

I wonder about you wondering about the author’s writing about Hindus. At the sametime you write a lot of things without any relation. While you accuse of he author relating an incident in 1399 with christians, you did not bother to read the his point one more to assure yourself if that’s what he was trying to say. One thing you rightly said is to spare our country from Hatred. That should happen from Muslims and Christians, They should spare India of Hindu Hatred. Living in USA for long i’m totally aware of the false propaganda to collect funds towards conversion. I’m sure you heard of Pat robertson’s call for converting 1 million hindus. If not that’s an information to you.
Think before you write.

worth reading articles like this even if the reader is a non Hindu . get some good information which very few people has thought off or know.
writeup like this in which without pintching others religion sentiment and at the same time pointing out there mistakes is very nice.

worth reading articles like this even if the reader is a non Hindu . get some good information which very few people has thought off or know.
writeup like this in which without pintching others religion sentiment and at the same time pointing out there mistakes is very nice.

This is just a badly written article. All this article will do is incite people who are too proud or too stupid to understand these arguments, and blindly follow them.

Before you agree with someone’s argument, you have to try and poke holes in it. If you don’t succeed, then you can believe in it. Herd mentality, like Vidur, Srijit, Poonam and Menon’s above, won’t help.

To all those oppose this article let me say few things clearly. It is true that Muslims in India clearly weigh their religion above the country. And no muslim/chrisitan in India is an original Muslim/christian. They either converted out of fear or for money at some earlier generation. If they say they did’nt and are original muslim/Christian then they are not Original Indian.

Stumbled upon this article. It is well-written but I see a lot of euphoria and a needless elevation of Hinduism. Well, if you are to argue with me starting with your first sentence of this article, the answer from me would be “Yes!!! There could be Hindu terrorist / activist. Just like the way Islam is misinterpreted by some people, there are unfortunately some Hindus who are politicizing the ‘way of life’ that hinduism preaches”.

I didn’t know that not a single muslim was harmed in the Babri Masjid demolition.

And the strife of Kashmiri pundits is very very under-rated.

The plurality of India is not acknowledged by the rest of the world, least of all Pakistan and Pakistanis. The unmentionable atrocities and conversion fervor unleashed against non-Muslims in Pakistan is also unnoticed and unmentioned by all quarters of the media across the globe.

I respect Gautier’s sentiments – we should definitely call a spade a spade and not denigrate the greatness of India with snide, glib and unsubstantiated media double-speak: Islamic fundamentalism is India’s enemy and Pakistan is India’s enemy. In the same breath we should be proud to say that India is undeniably great, and so are its citizens.

The disclaimer here should be that this pride does not warrant aggression against either Muslims or Pakistan. The moment we do that, our plurality, tolerance and hence our greatness goes for a toss and we are reduced to the same base level as our enemies.

Noor,
I m a sikh from delhi and do u even KNOW that some of our community started distributing sweets when the news of Indira Gandhi’s assasination spread… Shameful and then, the congressmen went mad and resorted to the violence we all know about…

though babri masjid was destroyed by hindus, it was to construct the temple of RAMA which was destroyed by muslim kings.
ofcourse, hindus or hinduism’s basic concept is tolerence but if one hindu reacts, example Bhagath Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad,and many more till Pragna Singh tagore, Purohith and many more who are not identified, ofcourse they might be against the fundamentalism of hinduism called tolerents, it is for hinduism.
Hinduism has “not only tolerence” , but also voilence. it could be better for any one just touch tolerence but not voilence. hindu voilence is hundred percent based on “Karma Siddantha” as specified in GEETA. any other relegion on globe performs voilence for a target, if not achieved voilence increases but hinduism has no target. it’s target is live till ur death. if the voilence starts it is not a surprise to see hindu as a canibal. he is no way related with results. his target is living peacefully with anything without considering relegion unless somebody tampers it.
it is not a warning like or it is not emotional. it is the fact that is happening since 1000s of years history.
Ashoka lead a kingdom till he tampered hinduism. so called Buddha(23rd), Mahaveer Jain, including Britishers, French and atlast Akbar and Aurangajeb lost there addresses by touching hindu culture.

It is not uncommon who come to India and fall in love with the culture to get all rosy eyed and blind to some of the very real horrors of Hinduism. Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism were all reforms of Hinduism that broke away from the mother religion altogether. Then there are the different reforms within Hinduism itself. Hinduism is known as the con-federation of many religions. There are many Hindu gods, many philosophies. How come there are no Indian Buddhists? BJP, the political party is an oan the ground organization of the militant underground RSS. For anyone who is unfamiliar with RSS, it stands for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for National Self Service Community. They worked parallel to the mainstream freedom movement of the National Congress Party. The man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi had been a member of RSS. They distanced themselves from him after the assassination. RSS has been banned at least three times in India due to its violence.
Anyone who reads the thoughts of all the Sangh Parivar (family of the RSS) would know that this is a Hindu fascist organization. Getting misty eyed and apologetic about its brutal philosophies, which blatantly discriminates against non-Hindu Indians is no help to India. Don’t forget how mad people get when some or any Muslim try to explain away violent Jihad with all sorts of apologia.

Read all the material that is available about the history of RSS, and its branches, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena, its political arm BJP etc to get a real clear idea about what the new Hindutva or Hinduness philosophy and philosophy in action is all about. There is so much distortion of Hinduism and Indian history as a result, that soon history books authored by RSS inspired Hindutva will have to be shelved under mythology and fiction.

RSS inspired BJP is about business and getting votes to get political power. The Hinduism that is being pedalled in its name is not Hinduism at all. Anyone who has really taken the time to read all the ideas that this so called Hindutva propagates and compares it with real Hinduism would know. The ignorant are always fooled.

Hinduism is what can be called as a negative religion. There are a lot of “dont dos” with no “dos”. God saved and violence became a “dont do”. The dirty caste system luckily punctured by Gandhiji and more recently by vote banks still exists. Islam has no caste, all are equal except women. But unfortunately there are many sects. When you add up all the plus and minus we are all just total naked people. Neither hindu, muslim, christian or jain. Even our underware is lost somewhere along our history. God save.

I do find truth in what the author claims. We may not agree with each and every word of it, but the central idea of the article is right/true. No muslim in India feels less or underprivileged compared to any hindu or sikh or christian. Every community in India follows its own rituals and ethos, whereas these clashes are only occasional when people become less tolerant. As a minority person risen fairly high in life, i can say that i was never discriminated in India – in education, at my workplace, in the society. I could do what i wanted, live my life the way i wanted. My views will be echoed by Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr.Manmohan Singh, Azim Premji, George Fernandes, and many more dignitaries. On the contrary, i see people from the minority community unncessarily flocking together in order to make their presence felt, and make a noise, and draw advantage of being a minority.
Reality is that human race should stay away from any sort of fundamentalism. That is where intolerance creeps in. India is, and will always remain a secular nation, much more successful in it its secularity than any other nation.

Recently I heard a person in the TV. He said India’s secularism is one of critical non-interference into all religions. It means noninterference is subject to a few things.
By this it is meant that:
1. if a religion or a part of it is badly in need of a particular help from government it will be given.(example scholarship, admissions)
2. if there is a particular offensive behaviour in a part of a religion it will be prevented.(example: untouchability, preventing women from working to live, etc.)
He says this is a superior form of secularism. Let us hope so.

OM ……
Just chanced upon this blogspot and these eye opening articles by Francois Gautier … I being an Indian .. shamefully am not aware of the facts portrayed by FG in his articles … I completely agree with the author on the over hyped media coverage of the so called “Hindu Terrorism” …. I beleive the majority of Bharat should wake up read the facts clearly and then mercilessly discard the biased media reports on these issues .. One thing for all those pseudo secularist Hindu ppl and also all those christians missionaries and other wannabe crusaders … Do not disturb the peaceful Hindu …… what all has happened is just a sample .. Imagine if all of the Hindu community were to wake up ….

And Mr. Srikumar ….Will you shut up and Go to hell??? You have no idea of what you are writing here …. ppl like you don’t belong to anything … you are a disgrace to any race, country and religion … why don’t you get yourself examined earliest by some psychiatrist or some head shrinker???

Perhaps, even better I would recommend ppl like u to go and attend some beautiful programs of the Art of living foundation …. atleast you’ll be able to appreciate the country and the true descendants of this country whom you are living with today.
Just remember and be grateful that you are still alive even after speaking some gibberish like this about ur own ppl .. that is the greatness of the Hindu culture …. Shut up!!!

I like truth and I can firmly stand by it. Mr. FG has not gone to an interior village and be part of a family. Then he will know that there is something called untouchability. Then he will oppose it. I bow to Gandhiji for reducing this bad practise and saving India forever.

FG does oppose “untouchability.” You’ve misunderstood him. What he is talking about is essentially the perversion of liberal/secular values of equal opportunity to reverse discrimination.

FYI even in online encyclopedias there is written of caste all over the world. The word caste is NOT AN INDIAN WORD. It is the English version (CASTE) of the PORTUGUESE “CASTA” :
“Casta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period. In English the term, casta also refers to the colonial Spanish American system of social stratification based on a person’s racial heritage that evolved along with the rise in miscegenation. A parallel system of categorization based on the degree of acculturation to Hispanic culture, which distinguished between gente de razón (Hispanics) and gente sin razón (non-acculturated people), concurrently existed and worked together with the idea of casta.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta

The Portuguese when they came to the Indian subcontinent, got it wrong. There are Western books on India from 20 years ago that talk about that. The Portuguese projected their notion of Casta on to India and mixed Varna (non inherited, and the only one that Hinduism writes about, and does not have “untouchability;” Shudras are not untouchables) with Jati (community and inherited) with the notion of inherited class status.

This will sound familiar:
“Burakumin (部落民, tribe people?), are a Japanese social minority group. The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō, the Ryukyuans of Okinawa and the residents of Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese descent.

The burakumin are descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, which mainly comprised those with occupations considered “tainted” with death or ritual impurity (such as executioners, undertakers or tanners), and traditionally lived in their own secluded hamlets and ghettos.

They were legally liberated in 1871 with the abolition of the feudal caste system; however, this did not put a stop to social discrimination and their lower living standards because Japanese family registration (Koseki) was fixed to ancestral home address until recently. In certain areas of Japan, there is still a stigma attached to being a resident of such areas, including some lingering discrimination in matters such as marriage and employment.

The long history of taboos and myths of the buraku left a continuous legacy of social desolation. Since the 1980s, more and more young buraku started to organize and protest against their social misfortunes. Movements with objectives ranging from “liberation” to encouraging integration have tried over the years to put a stop to this problem.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin

Nowhere in Gautier’s articles does he say he does not oppose untouchability. I think that it is disingenuous to imply that. Nor does he condone violence. What he speaks about is the imbalance of how Hindus are portrayed. The knee jerk equivalence that passes for liberalism/secularism, but is its distortion.

Plus also there is “caste,”inherited hierarchal status of groups, in Islam. Muslims are on top, those who are allowed to be dhimmis (Jews and Christians) are beneath, and those who do not get to be dhimmis are not allowed the tolerance of the Muslims state. “Among the infidel peoples there are differences. Those who do not possess Revealed Scriptures – and all Arabs – have, in theory, the choice between Islam or death. The others ‑ principally the Jews and Christians ‑ are granted protection status, according to the modalities of the conquest. They become dhimmis ‑ people protected by the law of Islam, by a dhimma. … This means that an infidel has no human rights, unless he is protected by Islamic law. …” Bat Ye’Or http://www.dhimmitude.org/archive/by_lecture_10oct2002.htm

Actually less than half are equal, all women are not equal, and all men are not equal because all non-Muslims are inferior to Muslim men and women. Only Muslim men are equal, which is less than half.

“…In the West, at least in constitution terms, however inadequately outworked in practice in some places, the equality of human beings is a fundamental assumption – ‘all men are equal before the law’. For this reason, Justice is often depicted in statues as blindfolded; the class, religion or race of anyone is irrelevant – the law, at least in terms of its goal, applies equally to everyone, and safeguards everyone equally.

In Islamic law, however, this is simply not the case. The life of a Muslim is considered superior to that of a non-Muslim, so much so that whilst a non-Muslim killing a Muslim would be executed, the reverse would not occur. [5] This is despite the fact that murder is normally considered a capital offence in Islam, with regular executions in most Muslim states. This inequity is also demonstrable in the blood rate paid to non-Muslims where murder or injury has occurred, which is half that of a Muslim. [6] Effectively, this ruling means that a Muslim need not fear the usual retribution for murder if he kills a non-Muslim. The law deliberately and consciously does not protect non-Muslims as it does Muslims. The position of Islamic law is not that human life is sacred, but that Muslim life is so.” http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/xstnc-5.html

Hinduism, Christianity or Islam are not independent of time.
One who has the opportunity to stop an adharm and fails to act is just as responsible as the one who started the irresponsible.
It is true that casteism and other ills plagued Hinduism. It is also true that because of such weaknesses the Islamic invaders were so successful in their designs. It is also true that the situation will change.

@NOOR,
Plse we Sikhs are tired of 1984 being mentioned all the time. We all know it was the Congress thugs who set this up & not the Hindu brothers. Mobs of Muslim & Christian congress workers ran on streets under the KL Bhagt orders of congress – Vajpayee personally had come out to help save Sikhs along with the RSS & Bajrang Dal.
There is a systematic plan that has been carried out over centuries by outsiders to weaken the Hindu panth as time goes on – from Islamic invasions to now Sonia’s Vatican invasions. No one mentions how Kashmiri hindus & Sikhs have been murdered for centuries by Muslim fanatics, no one mentions how women & children were murdered by muslim fanatics – n top the riots against us Sikhs were carried out to give the Hindus a terrorist colour – to drive a deep wedge between the two brothers who are one & the same heritage. They have succeeded so far in distorting sikh history, brainwashing sikhs against their on proud heritage which is Hindu heritage. Our Gurus died for their Hindu Dharma. Rajiv Gandhi was behind the killing of Sikhs not Hindus.

I am not sure where you’re getting your info, but good topic.
I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more.
Thanks for wonderful information I was looking for
this information for my mission.